CuriousCat Archive Page 81 of 202

  1. ahahahahaha that was me

    in response to Like what?

    do you think that's funny?

  2. If fascism takes root in America, how could the fascist government be defeated in a realistic manner, given that American history includes a long list of times we invaded other countries and either got away with it or successfully annexed them, in whole or in part?

    in response to If fascism takes root in America, and the leader doesn't attempt to invade any other country, and the military is wholly loyal to the leader, how could the fascist government be defeated in a realistic manner?

    I don't know

  4. I'm not super versed in political history, but does this mean there was no fascism before capitalism? Or is it just a saying for more recent times?

    in response to "neoliberalism is fascism-lite" even under the most Reaganite or Thatcherite versions of neoliberalism, this is frankly absurd.

    I mean, fascism has roots in many kinds of authoritarian systems throughout history, but fascism as we know it today began with Mussolini.

  5. If fascism takes root in America, and the leader doesn't attempt to invade any other country, and the military is wholly loyal to the leader, how could the fascist government be defeated in a realistic manner?

    I mean, that wouldn't happen? Fascism defines itself in contrast with its enemies and by its military prowess. The only times a fascist government doesn't invade their neighbors is when they are utterly outclassed militarily.

  6. This raises a related question. Is fascism consciously created by capitalists, or does it emerge from more grassroots sources in these situations and the capitalists just take advantage of it?

    in response to "neoliberalism is fascism-lite" even under the most Reaganite or Thatcherite versions of neoliberalism, this is frankly absurd.

    it's more that capitalism is system built on hierarchy and fascism is the logical endpoint of hierarchical power structures

  8. Has your body been feeling better and are you still recovering?

    yeah, it's doing quite well, thank you

  9. Like what?

    in response to What are some of the weirdest questions you have gotten here?

    things like "I have come to believe that YouTuber A was once in an abusive relationship and that their abuser was YouTuber B, and I would like you to publicly hold YouTuber B to account for this"

  10. What are some of the weirdest questions you have gotten here?

    the weirdest shit isn't questions, but more, like, hate-based headcanons about other youtubers that I'm supposed to weigh in on

  11. Best nut? I've been tearing through a can of lightly salted cashews at an alarming pace.

    I don't wanna be the guy who makes a really gross sex joke, but you can't ask "best nut" during no nut november and expect a clean response

  12. "neoliberalism is fascism-lite"

    even under the most Reaganite or Thatcherite versions of neoliberalism, this is frankly absurd.

    in response to I feel like "left" and "liberal" are doing a lot of work here neoliberalism is fascism-lite to start with, and if you look at mainstream the punditry the move from "liberal" to fascist is extremely common as for "left", the red-brown stuff in modern politics feels mostly isolated to (not to be rude) youtube, twitch, and the various personalities around which they revolve, which is to say left-punditry, much of which (Destiny, as an example) was never particularly "left" anyway in other words, people who perform their politics for an audience or acquire their politics by virtue of being in a particular audience do this shit ALL THE TIME, but I can't (and don't) see it happening with your local anarchist collective, or even most unions or statist revolutionary left formations (although they have their own problems)

    disagree. you know the saying, "fascism is capitalism in decay?" Reaganism and Thatcherism are the first steps of that decay.

  14. was the initial question meant to prompt historical or contemporary examples?

    in response to I feel like "left" and "liberal" are doing a lot of work here neoliberalism is fascism-lite to start with, and if you look at mainstream the punditry the move from "liberal" to fascist is extremely common as for "left", the red-brown stuff in modern politics feels mostly isolated to (not to be rude) youtube, twitch, and the various personalities around which they revolve, which is to say left-punditry, much of which (Destiny, as an example) was never particularly "left" anyway in other words, people who perform their politics for an audience or acquire their politics by virtue of being in a particular audience do this shit ALL THE TIME, but I can't (and don't) see it happening with your local anarchist collective, or even most unions or statist revolutionary left formations (although they have their own problems)

    seemed like a broad-brush dismissal of red-brown alliances in general. which, given how often leftism is spuriously dismissed on those grounds, I understand the reflex towards. but they exist, and have a long history, and must be reckoned with if we're going to talk about how leftism should be approached in the modern day.

  15. Isn't is fascinating how that left has so many high minded prescriptions about how foreign policy SHOULD work but ask about one case in the actual world and all you hear is crickets?

    maybe you shouldn't be asking random leftists on the internet about foreign policy and writing off their entire politics when they don't have an answer on hand

  16. I feel like "left" and "liberal" are doing a lot of work here

    neoliberalism is fascism-lite to start with, and if you look at mainstream the punditry the move from "liberal" to fascist is extremely common
    as for "left", the red-brown stuff in modern politics feels mostly isolated to (not to be rude) youtube, twitch, and the various personalities around which they revolve, which is to say left-punditry, much of which (Destiny, as an example) was never particularly "left" anyway

    in other words, people who perform their politics for an audience or acquire their politics by virtue of being in a particular audience do this shit ALL THE TIME, but I can't (and don't) see it happening with your local anarchist collective, or even most unions or statist revolutionary left formations (although they have their own problems)

    in response to Have you ever known a leftist or liberal turn right wing?

    I feel like your view of history is pretty short

  17. Could a stateless society even work on a global scale?

    in response to Is it possible for a thing to be neither private nor national?

    maybe we should try it and see. with nation-states we're on the brink of climate catastrophe, living with the constant threat of nuclear war, and can't seem to manage a pandemic that can be addressed with VERY simple precautions without millions of deaths, so I'd say the bar for success is pretty damn low.

  18. how is videos going

    I'm working with an animator on the current one so I don't have to pull long hours at the Wacom tablet, and the stuff we're getting is looking really good but it's taking a long time. in the meanwhile I've been writing ahead, got a draft of the next script in the can and I'm partway through the next-next script. I'll probably start doing one or the other myself so we're working in tandem, because I'm itchy to release SOMETHING.

  19. Why aren’t nihilists really nihilists? I’m going to keep asking until you answer.

    I don't know what you're asking, is it the setup for a joke?

  24. What are your thoughts on NFTs and people using NFTs and shiba coins, especially when it relates to artworks? More pros than cons?

    it's garbage

  25. Has the alt-right gotten quieter or am I just leading a healthier relationship with social media

    um... the term "Alt-Right" is functionally dead and its major figures have either been disgraced or gone underground. but it just means different figureheads are running the pipeline now and, and it's mostly funneling to MAGA or QAnon. the song remains the same.

  26. Have you ever known a leftist or liberal turn right wing?

    not personally, but they come up in my research all the time. there are whole movements built on siphoning people from the Left to the Right. Third Positionism and other red-brown alliances aren't as common as the Right makes out, but they exist.

  27. Is there any reason social media shouldn't be nationalised (in the case of the most popular platforms, by the USA)?

    I'm a leftist, I don't really think privatization should exist

  28. Things look grim in terms of getting progressive legislation passed but I will add that there is an awful lot we can do directly that to normies may just look like having cool things. Coop daycare, time banking, guerrilla gardening, closing the street to have block parties, Really Really Free Markets, neighborhood assemblies, Food Not Bombs, eviction defense, unionization, etc. Politics as statecraft feels really abstract to the average person but politics as Just Do It is pretty refreshing. Plus normies can get to experience socialism as a series of potlucks that people self-organize rather than something that requires a grim totalitarian government to force on them.

    in response to There are tens of millions of people in the United States whose brains have been turned to slurry by Murdoch media and other types of conservative disinformation, garbage schools in red states, and conservative parents. Under these conditions, pushing forward meaningful leftist change can seem like an insurmountably difficult task. How does one not succumb to doomerism in the face of such a society?

  29. This also illustrates how under capitalism the only kinds of activities that make a person valuable are ones that make money for others. Many disabled people are unable to work a "job" but still do volunteer work, care for relatives, make art and lots of other things. Sometimes just being good company is enough to lighten up someone's life. But none of these things can generate revenue - or at least not without enough work that many disabled people can keep up with. But someone who can't perform sanitation work due to being in a wheelchair could organize BLM marches, make comic books, be a photographer, give speeches, be a scholar or researcher... I know mobility impaired people personally who do all of these things. I don't abide by the belief that one's worth as a human is measured in making others happy - disabled people aren't pets who exist just to make able-bodied people feel good. We can and should determine our own lives. It just so happens that pursuing hobbies tends to form into communities that are mutually beneficial. And mutual benefit creates relationships of reciprocity. So you may take up sanitation duties for your neighbor in a wheelchair knowing that that means they will be enabled to create the queer comic books you enjoy for free later. This does not necessarily imply a quid pro quo barter transaction. It would just be how things are done here, which is how pre-capitalist societies tended to operate in practice.

    in response to Ah yes, I forgot that everyone was able-bodied enough to do their own farmwork and their own sanitation work. Silly me.

  30. Is talking politics with family members a good idea in general? Asking because of Thanksgiving coming up.

    ...sort of?

    Having discussions with family members about politics can sometimes lead to changing their politics. There are ways to have these discussions that are more impactful than others: focusing more on demystifying how the Left thinks, showing what the world looks like through your eyes, making your ethical framework plain and sensible, outside the context of an *argument*. The primary benefit of this is that in can improve your relationship with family members, and, given that conservatism is largely a politics of fear, make your family members happier, more rational people.

    But I recommend against acting like this is some sort of political duty. Changing the mind of a conservative is long, laborious work. It's draining and the success-to-failure ratio is not great. You should do it if you really care about it, and if you care about the person you're talking to. But, as a way of fighting reactionary conservatism, I think it's a lot of effort for a fairly minimal payoff. We're not going to fix the world one conservative at a time.

    There's this neoliberal framework that keeps us thinking of ourselves in isolation. The way to fight climate change is to always recycle, the way to fight fascism is to debate with your family members, the way to fight corporate colonialism is to always buy fair trade coffee, etc. Always acting as an individual. And, yes, these are all good things to do, and it's very hard to justify NOT doing them when you have the option. But they're not super effective as long-term strategies. We get more bang for our buck acting collectively and addressing root problems. Like, the person who volunteers with a group that hits Fox News with class action lawsuits to keep them from spreading misinformation is going to do more to deradicalize conservatives than a hundred people having one-to-one discussions over the dinner table, you know?

  31. You don't speak a sign language though, you sign it.

    in response to What languages do you wish you could speak?

    "speak" is here used metonymically to mean "have fluency in," ya pedant

  33. How not to cringe when listening to your own voice?

    in response to I'm recording audio for my first YouTube video and was wondering if you have any tips. Do you record the whole script in entire single takes or do you break it up? How many takes do you usually do? What software to you use to record audio and edit picture and sound? Any writing tips for the screen specifically (do you picture how your voice will sound when writing? Do you animate or record first?). Thanks, fam <3

    I think it helps that I used to edit podcasts, so I can kind of think of my voice as just, like, *a* voice and focus on what makes it sound best.

    but it's mostly just exposure. you edit a view videos around your voice, you'll get used to hearing it quick.

  34. Thoughts on BABA IS YOU?

    it's really good but it makes my brain hurt

  35. What languages do you wish you could speak?

    ASL

  37. Should we try to reclaim the word Pinko?

    I mean, it's in my Twitter profile

  39. Which is worse?

    Capitalism or racism

    the two are deeply intertwined

  40. Is this the same as “lemon stealing whore”?

    in response to Most bizzare porn you’ve ever watched?

    I'd have to look it up and I don't know that I need to do that

  41. IMO the inverse of this, the outright rejection of objective morality by leftists, is responsible for the rise in "both sides-ism" in the left and part the reason leftists never get anything done. But I'd love to hear your thoughts.

    in response to I wanted to ask about something seems related to much of the ARPB subjects, but I haven't seen it come up in particular: As you've mentioned, there tends to be a wholesale rejection from right-leaning folks to thinking in terms of systems. But there seems to be more to this than just disagreement about what analytic lens would be best applied to any given issue, it seems like they find someone public entertaining the thought of systematic analysis to be deeply offensive to them. Say for the sake of argument, a news piece or blog publishes something examine systemic racism or misogynic, talking about populations and percentages, and seeking to explain behavior based on environmental and social factors. In such a case, the commentary on it, either directly or in other places sharing and discussing it, is very quickly flooded by right-leaning people making very angry statements, accusing the originator of bias against them, and very often claiming that the piece is making assertions that... don't actually seem to appear in the piece at all. "Anita's Irony" is in full display at these times. I don't think this is necessarily brigading behavior, nor do I think it's part of some wider coordinated strategy. It's too diffuse for that, yet too relevant to not be a noticeable pattern. It almost feels like a lot of the early GG stuff was based on this phenomena, with influencers and tolls figuring out that they could weaponize this effect. It almost feels like there's some bit of psychology that could explain it, but I have yet to identify a working theory around it. Is this something you have thoughts on? How does it tie into the wider Playbook?

    you're thinking of liberals, leftists could stand to be a little LESS absolutist if I'm being honest

  42. Can you gimme free tiddy?

    in response to Can you gimme tree fiddy?

    porn's been free for years, fam, I'm not gonna source it for you

  43. "wage labor is always exploitative" is exactly this type of black and white thinking.

    in response to I wanted to ask about something seems related to much of the ARPB subjects, but I haven't seen it come up in particular: As you've mentioned, there tends to be a wholesale rejection from right-leaning folks to thinking in terms of systems. But there seems to be more to this than just disagreement about what analytic lens would be best applied to any given issue, it seems like they find someone public entertaining the thought of systematic analysis to be deeply offensive to them. Say for the sake of argument, a news piece or blog publishes something examine systemic racism or misogynic, talking about populations and percentages, and seeking to explain behavior based on environmental and social factors. In such a case, the commentary on it, either directly or in other places sharing and discussing it, is very quickly flooded by right-leaning people making very angry statements, accusing the originator of bias against them, and very often claiming that the piece is making assertions that... don't actually seem to appear in the piece at all. "Anita's Irony" is in full display at these times. I don't think this is necessarily brigading behavior, nor do I think it's part of some wider coordinated strategy. It's too diffuse for that, yet too relevant to not be a noticeable pattern. It almost feels like a lot of the early GG stuff was based on this phenomena, with influencers and tolls figuring out that they could weaponize this effect. It almost feels like there's some bit of psychology that could explain it, but I have yet to identify a working theory around it. Is this something you have thoughts on? How does it tie into the wider Playbook?

    nope! because I am a leftist who has to live under capitalism, and I am making conscious decisions every day about the varying degrees of exploitative labor I am willing to engage with. leftists are debating CONSTANTLY about how to exist in a capitalist world while limiting the exploitation they personally contribute, and how to reduce the amount that they are themselves exploited. there may be no ethical consumption under capitalism, but I'm still going to prefer an independent bookstore to a Barnes & Noble, a thrift shop to Old Navy, a local cafe to Starbucks. and I'm going to have this discussion with people about whether these lines I draw are correct for as long as capitalism exists. my partner doesn't want us to shop at Whole Foods if we can avoid it, so we prioritize Stop & Shop because it's better unionized, but I'm vegan and Stop & Shop doesn't always have enough options for me, and not contributing to the meat industry is a core value of mine that my partner doesn't share. this is life as a progressive; this is life as an anticapitalist. it is constant gradations and judgment calls.

    I just don't tell myself that there's a version of life under capitalism without exploitation. I have very high confidence in that.

  44. Median favorite swear words?

    in response to Least favorite?

    I'm fond of exclaiming "butts!" when distressed

  45. "maybe a little doomerism isn't so bad if you want to support people regardless."

    Easy to say if you already got it good

    in response to There are tens of millions of people in the United States whose brains have been turned to slurry by Murdoch media and other types of conservative disinformation, garbage schools in red states, and conservative parents. Under these conditions, pushing forward meaningful leftist change can seem like an insurmountably difficult task. How does one not succumb to doomerism in the face of such a society?

    exactly how good do you think I have it?

  46. I’ve seen like two dozen fictional bullies and zero real bullies - are bullies a real-life thing anymore?

    in response to I've just watched your video on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and I'm wondering, what do you think about the whole "nerd-jock" dichotomy in general? What do think about how the trope is portrayed in media, and how it does (or doesn't) map onto the real-world?

    I dunno, that seems like something you could google...

  47. can you even imagine 4chan having moderation? like, any at all? the site just needs to be nuked from orbit, imo

    in response to Which five?

    4chan had a modicum of moderation. they wouldn't allow child porn.

    that's why 8chan exists.

  48. I'm recording audio for my first YouTube video and was wondering if you have any tips. Do you record the whole script in entire single takes or do you break it up? How many takes do you usually do? What software to you use to record audio and edit picture and sound? Any writing tips for the screen specifically (do you picture how your voice will sound when writing? Do you animate or record first?).

    Thanks, fam <3

    Oh! Congratulations!

    My setup is as follows:

    I have a Blue Yeti USB mic with a pop screen, and I record in Audacity. I record all at once, but I repeat anything I flub or when I don't like the delivery. It's pretty common for me to start a reading, and then, a few paragraphs in when I've found my flow, start over with a better performance. At this point I have a pretty good sense of when a take sounds right, so I pretty much always go with my final line reading. (Hot tip: eating green apple slices periodically while recording will reduce lip smacking sounds.) Once it's recorded, I go through and edit out the lines I redid, as well as most of the breathes and empty space. For audio effects, I do the basics: noise removal of room done, a bit of bass boost, and compressor. Leveler if the compressor doesn't equalize things enough.

    I record a temp track first, and edit to that, making notes as I go of anything I want to change - maybe I want a different emotional cadence, or I think of a point I wish I'd made, or I want a different phrasing, or something in the visuals makes a certain word redundant. My editing setup is pretty basic - I illustrate in Flash and edit in Premiere. Once I have a rough cut with the temp audio, I re-record the final audio, re-edit, and re-sync the visuals to the new audio, and then I publish!

    As to writing for the screen: mostly it's just making sure to read what you're writing out loud, see how it sounds, how it flows. I've been doing this so long I'm not sure how to write prose that's meant to just be READ anymore. I find my delivery is more lively if I'm gesticulating in my chair. But, also, I was raised in community theatre and took acting and improv classes for like 10 years, so there's a lot of performance and enunciation techniques that are second nature now. If you can go back in time and take acting classes, that might help!

    But different people do different things! Renegade Cut, for instance, lies on their back in bed with the microphone lying against their chest to get a relaxed delivery. If you're starting out, feel free to experiment with different setups and different vibes! Finding your voice can be FUN.

  50. You ever consider going on Jeopardy?

    I was on the quiz team in high school and I am quite aware of what my skills are. I wouldn't get far.

  51. Least favorite?

    in response to Favorite swear words?

    I'll not dignify them by typing them out

  52. Alchohol Thoughts?

    I'm a lifelong teetotaler, but I tried a sip of my gf's ginger-lime soda with rye whiskey the other night and it's the first time in my life I've felt alcohol IMPROVED a beverage, and I don't really know what to think anymore.

  53. There are tens of millions of people in the United States whose brains have been turned to slurry by Murdoch media and other types of conservative disinformation, garbage schools in red states, and conservative parents. Under these conditions, pushing forward meaningful leftist change can seem like an insurmountably difficult task.

    How does one not succumb to doomerism in the face of such a society?

    I've embraced a degree of "get it while it's good" in my day-to-day philosophy. either our leftist, collectivist, mutually-supportive efforts are going to fix things, or they're going to make things a little better on the dusty road to collapse. maybe a little doomerism isn't so bad if you want to support people regardless.

  54. I've just watched your video on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and I'm wondering, what do you think about the whole "nerd-jock" dichotomy in general? What do think about how the trope is portrayed in media, and how it does (or doesn't) map onto the real-world?

    I have no idea what to think about it these days. the nerd-jock paradigm is just about popularity, with "sports" serving as a shorthand for popularity and "brains" being a shorthand for unpopularity. that might have been a pretty accurate heuristic in the 80's. I went to high school in the 90's, where being a computer guy still got you bullied, but you could see some of the dichotomy breaking down. (also we had a championship-level track team with tons of scrawny nerds on it while the football team couldn't win a game to save its life.) nowadays? I have no idea what gets your bullied or not. everyone plays video games and uses computers, so I don't think that's a bad thing anymore. is bullying still about masculinity? is it more about marginalized identities now? is it more overtly political? no clue.

  55. Most bizzare porn you’ve ever watched?

    lemon slut

  56. Why do we oft assume right-wing figureheads and pundits are grifters? Is it so hard to believe that they truly believe the things they say?

    when you believe in your own rightness, and that money and power dictate what is true, than grift and sincerity aren't mutually exclusive

  57. Ah yes, I forgot that everyone was able-bodied enough to do their own farmwork and their own sanitation work. Silly me.

    in response to Who's going to clean the septic tanks and work the fields and do all the other shit jobs in a post-capitalism anarcho-communist utopia?

    you know full well that the socialist's motto is "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need," and that capitalism treats disabled people like absolute garbage, so I'm not sure this is the slam dunk you think it is. I have no problem doing sanitation work knowing someone in a wheelchair doesn't have to; capitalism says "people in wheelchairs don't generate enough profit to make accessibility ramps cost-effective, so get fucked I guess."

  58. Any recommendations from the Criterion Channel's collection of Japanese noir? I know you had that list on your tumblog, but that seems to be American stuff.

    I've had several in my queue for a while, and added a bunch from that collection, but Japanese noir is still a blind spot for me! Noir is often a comfort food for me, and I find I often don't want to read subtitles when I'm watching comfort food, but I know it'll be rewarding to do it anyway. Starting with the Kurosawa pictures is probably a safe bet.

  59. Is it right to say that just like how liberals view the rules as some sort of justice machine, small government conservatives and libertarians view governments as a sort of INjustice machine?

    no, if they believed that they'd be anarchists. conservatives and libertarians view government as a source of power. injustice is when the wrong people wield that power, but it is 100% just so long as THEY are in charge.

  60. I wanted to ask about something seems related to much of the ARPB subjects, but I haven't seen it come up in particular:

    As you've mentioned, there tends to be a wholesale rejection from right-leaning folks to thinking in terms of systems. But there seems to be more to this than just disagreement about what analytic lens would be best applied to any given issue, it seems like they find someone public entertaining the thought of systematic analysis to be deeply offensive to them. Say for the sake of argument, a news piece or blog publishes something examine systemic racism or misogynic, talking about populations and percentages, and seeking to explain behavior based on environmental and social factors. In such a case, the commentary on it, either directly or in other places sharing and discussing it, is very quickly flooded by right-leaning people making very angry statements, accusing the originator of bias against them, and very often claiming that the piece is making assertions that... don't actually seem to appear in the piece at all. "Anita's Irony" is in full display at these times.

    I don't think this is necessarily brigading behavior, nor do I think it's part of some wider coordinated strategy. It's too diffuse for that, yet too relevant to not be a noticeable pattern. It almost feels like a lot of the early GG stuff was based on this phenomena, with influencers and tolls figuring out that they could weaponize this effect. It almost feels like there's some bit of psychology that could explain it, but I have yet to identify a working theory around it.

    Is this something you have thoughts on? How does it tie into the wider Playbook?

    well, something I was getting at in both Why Are You So Angry? and I Hate Mondays is that systemic analysis, in which you carry some responsibility for actions taken by other people because you benefit from them indirectly, is HORRIFYING to people who have a binary GOOD/BAD notion of ethics. because, remember, you don't get into heaven for being 51% good, you only get in if you're close to 100%. this puritanical notion of ethics interprets the existence of systemic issues as "every one of us is going to Hell." they MUST be denied in order to keep believing you're a good person.

    I do suspect it's bigger than that. you see a lot of folks, from the Christian conspiracists to Jordan Peterson FLIPPING OUT at the idea of gradation and subjectivity. that, if things are not good or bad but are only DEGREES of bad, or if things are not decidedly true or false but are only ACCURATE WITHIN A CERTAIN CONFIDENCE, then their entire conception of the universe comes crashing down. it is the death of certainty. for people who believe in the purity of hierarchies, be they religious or social, the fact that everything is fuzzy and morality is just a set of sometimes-contradictory lenses and our understanding of the world is colored by our environment and even knowing this doesn't mean you can escape it... it's akin to killing God.

  61. You think the US would have been marginally better if New York stayed New Amsterdam

    that's nobody's business but the Turks

  62. You said that the GOP will try running a Bush clone at some point, what if they try to run their own Obama

    I think that's what McCain was supposed to be

  63. Do you think GamerGate, and equivalent, could have been prevented (by online leftists)?

    if like 5 websites had decent moderation, GamerGate lasts a month at most

  64. Can you gimme tree fiddy?

    yeah but it'll be in pennies

  65. I found CutiePie

    subscribe to KewDiePie

  66. GMOs kick ass and dwarf wheat alone is probably singlehandedly responsible for saving hundreds of millions of lives; if we figure out how to make staple crops like rice and corn contain vitamins they don't normally produce we could save hundreds of millions more from nutritional deficiencies

    the answer to the GMO problem, like the answer to all our other problems, is (in this case intellectual) property crime :)

    in response to Are GMO's unhealthy?

    always

  67. Why do you like Celeste? Seems stressful to me.

    I guess The Alt-Right Playbook is evidence that I lean into stress sometimes

  69. I know you float around melee and Street Fighter, but did you try/like the new Guilty Gear?

    *sigh* I don't even float around Melee anymore. :(

  71. History arguably shows that even with ostensible leftists in power from electoralism, they will use the full power of the state, including deputizing fascist death gangs, to shut down revolutionary socialism and anarchism.

    in response to So you don't see any chance for leftists in elections?

    I don't want to make any sweeping statements from anecdotal evidence, and would be curious to see examples of leftists in office using the state apparatus to AID in revolutionary action, but, yeah, I don't get the sense that happens much

  73. Are GMO's unhealthy?

    the question of GMO health is not about genetic modification making food worse for you to eat. modification can be good or bad, the issue is whether you trust the FDA. if agribusiness has some new modification that increases yield on tomatoes and thereby makes the company richer but may or may not increase the risk of, say, ulcers in people who eat it, do you trust the FDA to make the right call? or will they do what's good for the business instead of the consumer? this doesn't mean every decision the FDA has made is wrong, but that they are often biased in favor of business and harder to trust.

    but that's a very small part of the GMO problem, honestly. the real issue is that genetically modified foods are copyrightable. GMOs are why farmers have to BUY corn every year instead of just planting corn they have, because Monsanto genetically modified their product so yield barren seeds. this is how PepsiCo is able to sue Indian farmers for growing potatoes that have trace amounts of their patented DNA. this is especially a problem on farms, because you can't always keep the GMO crops from cross-pollinating with the non-GMOs, meaning copyrighted genetic material may end up in the crops you grew yourself, and some business can sue you for it. the fact that not just food but the DNA of the food itself can be OWNED is horrifying.

  74. hey dawg. What do you think of the idea that platformers don't work in 3D because they are worse to control? Do you agree? Disagree? If you disagree do you have any 3D platformers that you think are really good?

    they have complications that are harder to manage, but, I mean, Mario 64 is still really good?

  75. how do you get to a sociallist USA without businesses leaving and completely destroying the economy like Venezuela?

    I think that's a very reductive notion of where Venezuela's problems came from

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